Kris Attfield is the author of three books: The Book of Finch, Letters to Whomever, The Eagle's Sore: A Novella and Pfhonge, The Inter-Continental Brink of Madness, Air Defence, Doorless Darts and Blaine Bananatree - a bunch of video games.

Monday, August 13, 2018

In The Book of Finch, I have small examples of miracles that happen simply because I "will" it and it suddenly happens.

A few weeks ago, I asked God to send Jesus to heal my pretty bad headache, and the headache was quickly fixed ---- without acetaminophen or ibuprofen.

So: Today's big story which just happened a moment ago:::

My parents love gardening.

They love watering their plants.

I like reminding my parents that the City of Calgary Government doesn't want too much water spent on vegetation. Also::: My bedroom is in a position where if the outside hose is running, I hear it loud and clear.

So::: About 10 minutes ago I was going to sit down to play a video game in my bedroom, but I heard the hose running --- and that was annoying.

I stepped out of my room to ask my Mom if the water could be turned off.

She said, "I'll turn it off in 10 minutes".

A few minutes ago, at about the 8-minute mark, I decided I had enough of the hose and decided I would just go turn it off.

I could hear my Mom in the kitchen upstairs, and my Dad was also in the house. Nobody had gone outside yet to do anything.

So, as I decided to go turn it off myself, as I was getting out of bed----- suddenly silence.

Both my parents were in the house.

But as soon as I wished in my heart to go turn the water off, and as I was getting up to turn it off ----- the sound suddenly disappeared ----- the water just "turned off" and I don't know how.

On rare occasions, things like this have happened before. This one excites me to experience it happen again.

Anyway.

I figure I shouldn't clutter my blog with too much useless information ---- so I'm wondering about how much I need to keep some of my recent blog posts -------

but this experience just now was just really, well, something, so I had to write about it.

SOLVED:::::

9:54am the August 14th (next day)

I asked my Mom who turned off the water last night. She said Dad did, that she aske dhim ot turn it off.

So, this situation is solved.

But it is however very amusing that the water turned off just as I was getting up to turn it off myself.

I guess I only thought I could hear my Dad elsewhere in the house.. Maybe thatw as my brother.

I was just sitting in my chair by my desk, wondering how it is that I would need medication only directly after I got my LDS Patriarchal blessing ------

and then my mind was hit with information about what I'll call a "possibility" of why my life changed so drastically in so many different directions at the same time.

SO:::: the following is "speculation", which is based on thoughts that just magically entered my head, and as such, they may be "delusion" which means they might not be true ---- except the idea is kind of seeming plausible.

This is what I would call "telepathic information" ----- nobody said anything physically to me, but I heard it in my mind.

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The big idea I got is that the reason I was dumbed down and then forced on drugs which would result in making me a much bigger person is this:::::

Someone wanted me to be a football player.

In Grade 10 Physical Education class, there was a unit where we would go to the school gym and lift weights.

I know one of the teachers personally observed me on one of the leg-weight machines, and what I did on the leg weight machine was lift the maximum amount of weight I possibly could on that machine.

Combined with my large stature, maybe there was some idea that was going around that I could be a football player.

So after I got m patriarchal blessing, I was met with a conflict::::::

On one hand, my personal agreement with God and the patriarch's words that I would serve GOD --- as a traveling preacher to the nations.

On the other hand, another force wanted me on drugs which would cause me to gain serious weight which might make me desirable for football. Also:: being considered schizophrenic and being on drugs would cause me to NOT serve the mission the patriarch had prophecied.

It was basically a situation where the church gave me "crazy" ideas or beliefs, and then my parents didn't have the intellectual ability or even desire to actually follow the church completely -------

According to what I understand now, there are some real myths or dishonest information that can really get passed around in society ----- and one of the things my Dad held to was a belief in brain chemicals, brain medication ------ and he never really fully accepted any doctrine of Demons actually being real and he basically had this problem that he was raising me in a church that he didn't fully believe in or follow himself.

SO:::::: maybe in order to make me a football player, the whole schizophrenia thing overtook my Dad's mind and he easily crumbled under the pressure to take me to mental illness land.

The truth is, my Dad wasn't a full-time believer in the church ---- so taking my church beliefs, then telling me I'm schizophrenic for them and forcing me on drugs for it was right up his alley.

And I just experienced thoughts being planted in my brain that the idea was to turn me into a football player.

If that's really true or not:: I don't really know, though telepathy exists there's no law that says it has to be honest or 100% accurate.

Of course, one aspect of what I was just thinking may MIGHT'VE been due to the fact that one of the people who contacted me the other day apparently plays or played Football. Not sure if this is the real reason, but it's worth noting.

SO::: the news here is that I was just hearing thoughts that gave me a new perspective on why they would want to dumb me down and make me gain weight:::: Football.

Sunday, August 12, 2018

In my last post I know I painted my male friends as troublemakers who were bad influences.

But that wasn't entirely true.

Everyone is imperfect, as they say, but when I thought about the different things I knew about my different friends ----- I have one male non-Mormon friend who stands out as being "more honorable" than the rest, as far as I knew him.

He and I didn't get along perfectly ---- but he was my friend, we grew up together, and I am not aware of anything so seriously wrong with him like could be said about so many of my friends.

Here's my clue as to who he was:::

He was my one and only friend who had a Nintendo and would invite me over to his house, and we would play his Nintendo. He had seen so much Nintendo he had less interest in it than I, and would often take me out for bike rides.

he was also part of the "Sk8er" group in my grade 10 foods class, the group of friends that made me comparable to Avril's Sk8er Boi song.

He and I didn't get along perfectly, but he was, in fact, one of the Most honorable friends I think I had. He wasn't perfect, but he wasn't completely defective like so many were though.

What I was trying to say in my last blog post was that my "good influence Mormon friend" was disallowed from being friends with me, while all kinds of my "bad influence non-Mormon friends" were totally being permitted.

The fact that I had one non-Mormon friend who was actually honorable is just being noted so that not all "non-Mormons" are painted as bad. What's weird is, that Sk8er group I was part of in Grade 10 foods was probably closest to being one of the most beneficial friendship groups I've ever been in ---- and I almost became the outcast or bad guy myself BECAUSE I WAS MORMON. But they accepted me! Amazing isn't it?

But that Grade 10 Foods group of friends only lasted for a little while in that small specific class during that time at school. It was over when the class was over.

ALSO::::: There were a couple of young men from the Mormon youth group who did accept me as a personal friend when I was young ----- I did have friends in the Mormon youth group ----- BUT BOTH OF THEM LEFT THE CHURCH WHEN THEY WERE STILL YOUTH AND DID NOT REALLY WANT TO ATTEND.

The only two guys who were Mormons who also specifically befriended me, both of them actually left the church shortly before I decided to high-tail it out of there too.

So:::: of the Mormon friends I did have ---- they did not stay Mormon.

and the ONE Mormon friend I had who was "Mormon and 'good influence' and didn't leave the church" ---- that friendship was forced to an end by those who had control.

Saturday, August 11, 2018

As I rode in the car, I had some thoughts about how strange the church's decisions in my life were.

I'll explain:::::

These days, I don't really have real friends like I used to when I was a kid ----- there is a big difference between the type of relationships I would have now versus the relationships I would have with FRIENDS when I was younger.

But something really concerns me as strange regarding the church's influence on friends in my life.

I had Annie Liability as a friend, and I had a bunch of male friends.

My male friends were typically non-members, so they didn't believe in Mormonism, they all held completely different philosophical values from the church ----- and as such, they could be bad influences, and in fact, I realize they could be considered troublemakers at that young age.

Annie Liability was the same religion as me, she was a Mormon and she tried to be what she understood to be a good influence on me ----- she was different from my other friends, but she was trying to have a positive impact on my life --- as far as she understood positivity, as far as I remember.

SO:::::: If my male friends were all non-Mormon troublemakers who could be bad influences,

while Annie Liability was a Mormon who tried to impress some kind of good value system in me as she understood it ------

WHY ON EARTH is it that the LDS MORMON church decided that I wasn't allowed to be friends with my "good" influence while they had absolutely no problem with my bad influence friends?

I tried to help Annie feel happy, and she helped keep me interested in life ------ yet the church absolutely demolished that friendship ----- she and I were both members, we were trying to impact each other in a good way, and yet the friendship just wasn't allowed.

While my other friends were not Mormons, and the church appeared to have zero problems with the bad influence they could potentially have had on my life.

I'm not allowed to be with my fellow Mormon good influence friend while I am allowed to be with a bunch of troublemakers who probably didn't help me that much.

Something just isn't making sense about the church's decision making. Not making sense at all.

And you want to know what's kind of sad??? The boys in my own quorum at church ----- they were basically just "church" friends ---- they never really were and never really became actual real close friends.

I basically grew up in the church environment but never got really close to the other members except for Annie Liability ----- who was taken away ---------

while the church had zero problems with potentially bad influences in my life.

It's just really confusing you know? I don't understand.

The other Mormons basically just didn't accept me ------ and let me be friends with non-Mormons ------

but when Avril Lavigne wanted to be my friend (as near as I could understand the communications I saw at the time) ----- OH NO --- the church definitely CAN'T allow that --------

even though they previously had zero problems with me being involved with non-Mormon influences.

I am just really, really confused here. It's not making sense.

So:::: I'm just not clear in my mind about many of the decisions the church made in my life.

Another problem decision that comes to mind that I've mentioned before is this::::

I was a real smart kid ---- I was a top student.

As I grew in the church, I've eventually come to understand that the church DID NOT WANT me to be intelligent. They really-really WANTED to dumb me down.

This can be explained especially when the Bishop's daughter and my sisters appeared to be deliberately trying to drive me insane, especially even through the chanting of some weird magic.

So:::: though the church, as I now understand, was actually deliberately trying to dumb me down because they actually didn't want people who were actually smart ----------

for some reason, after I lost my mind they decided I needed to take psychiatric medications in order to make me smart again.

????????

I'm just kind of confused. They wanted me to be dumb. My patriarchal blessing did not say go to higher learnings institutions. My sisters and the bishop's daugther deliberately wanted me to lose my mind -------

and though it appears the church's goal was actually to make me not-smart, for some reason it suddenly became important to make me smart again through the use of psychiatric medications.

The thing is:::: the patriarch blessed me with an especially blessed mind ------- so it's weird his special blessing didn't just cure the schizophrenia, and it's weird that a drug that could easily be considered to be against the word of wisdom was actually determined to be that special blessing for my mind, even though before the blessing I had no need of such drugs before.

Something is really messed up about that.

Just more decisions that don't make sense.

They wanted me to be dumb ----- and then they wanted to smarten me up again with drugs even though their magic powers should have been perfectly capable of fixing me without medication.

Just so strange the decisions they were making.

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And finally,

I have some interesting news about my leanings on my financial plans::::

Previously, I figured I would just invest money that I received for the next while ------

But the law of attraction must have some real effect because having been asked to build another game, I feel more inclined to just save my money in a savings account until I have enough to buy everything need to get started on another project ---- and I don't even have an idea for a game yet.

Another force guiding me to just save my money in savings account rather than investment right now is I'm realizing I should probably get a new prescription and new glasses, so saving my money might be good for that too.

So. Hmmmm. Just inside of me, in my heart and in my thoughts, simply having been requested to build another game I am leaning towards saving for equipment and game development rather than just investing it.

Just the way I feel right now. I am pretty certain that other's use of the Law of Attraction can have effect on me, not only in this situation where another game is requested,

but also in the situation where my sisters wanted me to lose my mind, and also in the situation where my friends at school could have been a bad influence.

The Law of Attraction seems like something reasonable to believe in to me.

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

After all this time having my games for sale ----- I said people could write comments suggestions and bug reports to me -------

but today was probably one of the earliest personal contacts from the OUYA community - a couple guys decided to chat with me.

We talked about a bunch of stuff or a bit of stuff which was almost a bunch -----

I just feel appreciated now ---- he/they encouraged me to build another game. They were fans.

So that was nice.

I might not have mentioned this on my website, but I noticed the day they decided to contact me was AUGUST 8th 2018 -------

8/8/'8

Huh. yeah. It seems foreboding. Or at least a bit historical in someone's life.

So yeah ----- turns out there are other people out there ------ and they did enjoy my games, and did want me to continue with the business.

We'll see ----- I would need a new creative idea, funding for the new version of Unity, equipment, app store publishing access -------- and it's hard to think of sinking the money at this point when historically sales seemed so dismal.

But it was really nice of them to encourage me. They even said they'd check out my book! Hah ---- we'll see.

Tuesday, August 7, 2018

I figured I wanted an easy way to monitor processor usage on my mac --- especially when the screensaver is turned on,

so I built a utility that beeps and records every second that my mac uses over a user-specified percentage of processing power.

You can specify if you want to monitor User CPU usage, System CPU usage, or both at the same time.

So::: rather than keeping the Activity Monitor open and letting it chew up resources -- with much less processor usage I can now get a good idea of when your CPU is being used, now even when the screensaver is turned on!

I'm pretty happy with myself for figuring this one out.

I'm thinking I might try selling this utility plus my two other mac apps in my bitcoin store ----- but we'll wait and see before we're sure I want to.

Oh sure, I could set up a website and let people download my little programs for free ----- but then I'd likely be paying for the website and I'd see no income -----

Therefore I can save my money by not setting up a website, and then make money by having people pay me bitcoin for my apps. Sounds good to me.

Monday, August 6, 2018

I post on this blog because my portal tells me people do visit this site. Who knows why ---- maybe to check up on me after the dark history my life had to go through.

Don't worry, things are really lightening up in my life ----- the worst part about my life today is the persistent memories of the past, and a small amount of continuing problems with one member of my family (not much we can do about that though and it's not a big deal).

So::::

In Guitar::: My C-Chord still has problems. My other chords all sound "strummy". My C-Chord sounds "plucky". It's just not right. I get my fingers in the right position, but it just, often, doesn't turn out right. Pray for my C-Chord.

As for using my 1.4ghz Mac Mini with only 4gb of RAM when updating Bitcoin Core -----

I increased my "dbcache" to about 800 - I think ---- I have "par" set to -1 and

I noticed that the way it seems to run best or fastest is to set the NICE on the app to 20 and then move my cursor into a corner and let the hot corner turn on the screensaver.

Just a moment ago I came back from 15 minutes of the app updating this way, and I was getting 0.12 or 0.13 percent per hour. After turning off the screensaver::: the update process did begin to slow down again.

so::: to check your nice:::

the command is:

ps -O nice -p (your process PID here)

To update your nice::::

sudo renice 20 -p (your process PID here)

And lastly, I thought I'd try developing a small utility on this new 1.4ghz machine -----

I have to say, this is a slow machine. A faster machine would really speed up the process I'm sure.

And I still have to figure out exactly what I'm doing to build that small utility anyways.

Who knows if I'll ever figure it out.

NOTE:::

In the manpages it's confusing to figure out if -20 or 20 is high priority. I've come to understand from experience that 20 is most likely high priority. I might be wrong. The documentation is confusing.

Friday, August 3, 2018

So in a recent blog post I tried to give a bit of a review of my new refurbished 1.4ghz mac mini and used the updating of my bitcoin core client as a "benchmark" on how fast my computers ran, in comparison.

I said my 1.4ghz mac mini would go 100% on one core for about half an hour and get quite a bit of work done -----

while my quad core pentium linux laptop seemed very slow.

Well, I figured some things out:::

1) I reconfigured the bitcoin.conf file on my linux laptop. Now bitcoin core on my quad core pentium runs A LOT faster. I fixed it somehow.

2) My 1.4ghz mac mini started to really-really slow down when downloading the information ------

so I decided to scrap the new fresh download of the bitcoin blockchain and just transferred the entire wallet from my 2012 mac mini to my new mac mini using file transfer.

Copying the wallet using file transfer was definitely the faster way to go ----- but the problem persists where updating the blockchain on my new computer is exceedingly slow, regardless of how I try to configure bitcoin.conf.

So:::::: I know when I first tried doing bitcoin core that I could very easily see the program working at 100% on one core on my mac -------- but after a while, and no matter how I try to fix it, these days I am very lucky if I happen to get to 20% processor usage ---- it spends much time using only about 5% of one core.

So, configuring my Linux Laptop the laptop became a lot, lot faster.

While without anything changing my new mac mini slowed down completely, and now that I'm trying to play with the bitcoin.conf file here too ----- not much seems to make any difference.

It feels like some exterior force is really throttling down this mac mini. I don't see why it was perfectly capable of running at 100% for a good long while, but now barely reaches 20% on the same application doing the same thing.

I will just explain here on my blog:::: the reason the login attempt seems so suspicious from my Linux Laptop is just yesterday our ISP came out and gave us a new modem ----- and this modem changes a whole bunch of stuff, so it probably also changed our DHCP IP address as well ---- and that might be why my email checking on my laptop seemed suspicious to google's automation.